Minister says schools not reopening soon despite pressure from associations.

Byline: Shazia Hasan

KARACHI -- Sindh Minister for Education, Labour and Human Resources Saeed Ghani has said that the education department cannot risk reopening educational institutions in the province by June 1 or June 15 as he is being pressured to do so by several private school associations.

He also said that they had thought over the decision of promoting all students to the next level without taking exams because there were issues they had overlooked earlier, especially when it comes to board exams. Therefore, only students up to class eight would be promoted.

The minister was speaking to members of the media following a two-hour meeting of the Sindh government's steering committee on education at the Sindh Assembly here on Tuesday.

It was being said for several days that nothing regarding education, be it the decision of reopening of schools, examinations, fees, etc, was final and inconclusive until the steering committee meets again to take up all these matters with the stakeholders.

Students from class one to eight will be promoted to next level

The education minister said that Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood's announcement that the closure of schools would be extended till July 15 and all students of classes one to 12 were to be promoted without having to sit for exams was given in haste without looking at the problems from all angles. 'But to all the private schools saying that schools should reopen from June 1 or June 15, I will also say that we are also not prepared for that. We will have to extend the closure,' he said, adding that the steering committee on education had already announced the entire academic plan in March, but after Shafqat Mahmood's announcement last week, he called him to inform that he did not have the Sindh education department's consent and they would like to review his decisions by calling their steering committee's meeting again.

'But now the federal minister for education is also saying that promoting students of classes nine, 10, 11 and 12 is not so simple,' he said.

'Yes, students of classes one to eight can be promoted to the next level on the basis of their last year's performance and results,' he said. 'But there, too, it won't be right to promote students who just barely passed last year. We think it would be good to make some students who are very weak in certain subjects to take their exams in those particular subjects. But this decision we leave to the discretion of the...